Garlic

Garlic bookends the whole season, planted as cloves in October and lifted as fat bulbs the following mid July. In between come the June scapes, the first genuinely exciting harvest of summer.

Growing

Plant the biggest cloves from the best bulbs in mid to late October, pointy end up, three inches deep and six apart, then mulch with straw. Hardneck types are the right call for a 6b winter. Shoots that show in November are normal and shrug off the cold. Cut the scapes in June when they make their first curl, which sends the energy back down to the bulb. Lift in mid July when about half the leaves have browned, and cure whole plants two to three weeks somewhere dry, airy, and shaded before trimming; the best heads get set aside for October's planting. Watering is a spring job: April and May, while the bulbs swell, are the weeks the bed should never go dusty; by late June the hose stays coiled so the wrappers cure tight for the July lift.

Varieties

Music and German Extra Hardy are the house picks: big cloves, unbothered by cold, storing well into spring. Chesnok Red is the one to add for roasting.

Pests

The spring flight of allium leaf miner, mid April into May, lays into the standing crop; netting during those weeks is the organic answer. Beyond that, garlic is the least-bothered plant in the garden; even the deer walk past.

In the kitchen

Scapes become pesto and stir-fry fodder in June, and the cured bulbs carry the kitchen from July until the braid runs out. Roast a whole head from the small-bulb pile before it gets a chance to sprout.